


Best Seats in the House

by jumpfall



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpfall/pseuds/jumpfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day in the life of Five-0, as told by everybody but.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Seats in the House

**Author's Note:**

> Set during season one, where Governor Jameson is still around (and assumed benevolent.)
> 
> Originally posted February 3, 2012, over on livejournal.

**_Criminals_ **

They gather just past midnight out back in Palani's lanai, which is leaking and partially boarded up from the recent tsunami scare, a half-eaten guava cake lying abandoned on the coffee table. Whoever brings the snacks gets the couch; honour among thieves is most sacred when it comes to food.

"What's with the grin?"

"I'm about to come into some major cash, brother," says the newest of their group, a young haole with sticky fingers and quick feet.

"Oh yeah?"

"Picked up a little something of Jameson's for myself. Soon as I find a fence, I'll be rolling in dough," Jesse continues, looking ever so proud of himself.

Palani sits up a little straighter, focuses more intently on the conversation at hand. " _Governor_ Jameson?"

Jesse's beam fades a little at the lack of expected enthusiasm, nodding in confirmation. Palani slings the paper plate onto the side table that's never sat quite level, putting his head in his hands.

"Ho, brah," the counterfeiter in their group whines – Palani didn't know he had a whine in him until this point, actually; had only heard grunts and yells up to now – "I'm out of here."

"What? What'd I do?"

"Start the car running, I'll pack a bag," Palani instructs the core group of men who haven't yet run for the hills, looking to him for instruction instead. "You fucked up," he says to Jesse. "She'll call in 5-0, now."

"I heard McGarrett hung a guy off a roof," one of the men sticks his head back in the door to say.

"I heard Williams tied a guy to his hood."

"Have you seen the way Kelly handles that shotgun?"

"Friend of mine went up against Kalakaua, he's still speaking an octave higher."

"When'd he fight her?" Palani asks.

"Last month."

-

_**HPD** _

"This is Detective Williams, 5-0. We need a unit of backup – what? No, Steven, we talked about this, you don't argue about the backup the day before my weekend with Grace, and I don't put _my foot up your_ \--."

"Detective?" Charlie interrupts when Williams pauses to take a breath. "Your location?" He's sure Dispatch has that information, but he needs _something_ to stop the bickering.

"Northern edge of the beach in Waikiki, by the surf shack."

"ETA 10 minutes," Charlie parries back, signalling one of the officers passing by his office to hold on a minute.

He hangs up after Williams acknowledges the timeframe, but not in time to escape hearing, "I am not in the mood for this. One more step and I will _drop you_ \--."

He looks down at the drawer he keeps the Advil in mournfully, knowing relief for his building headache is going to have to wait until he gets this sorted. "Grab Keahi and Conway and head out to Waikiki, keep 5-0 from blowing things up."

"Blowing things up?" the shorter one – Ailani, Charlie thinks his name is -- must be new if the idea of 5-0 starting a fire surprises him. "Shouldn't we call someone about that?"

"Brah, they are the people we call…when they're not starting the fires," his partner informs him, clapping him on the back. "Good learning experience for you, though; more action in one afternoon as backup for 5-0 than you'd get the whole month here."

-

_**911** _

"911, what is your emergency?"

"There's a fire in the building across the street. It looks pretty intense – oh my god! It just – it just exploded!"

Alisha's been working as a 911 operator too long to let the panic in the voice on the other end of the line faze her. She keeps an eye on the triangulation program that runs automatically according to protocol, watching it narrow in on a quiet street in the area of Kalihi.

"Okay, sir, I need you to stay calm," she instructs the man, sending a message to dispatch to roll all three types of first responders as she speaks. "Back up to a safe distance for me. Is there anyone else around? Do you know if anyone's in the building?"

"It's – it's pretty empty, I think, there's nobody else around, except for this silver Camaro out front…"

 _'Got a location on 5-0?'_ She messages dispatch. There's a brief pause, and then Arnold – sweet, polite Arnold, who isn't nearly as jaded after five years of this job as Alisha has become – sends back one word.

 _'Again?_ '

-

_**Hospital** _

Haunani is just rounding the nurse's station on the last hour of his shift when he sees a familiar face enter through the sliding doors of the ER. Well, at least this time she's walking under her own power. "Cousin Kono! Are you here to get your stitches removed?"

Kono hands off the arm of the loud-mouthed blond man she'd had slung around her shoulders, letting Chin take over and waving the group of three men to carry on without her. "Haunani," she greets him smoothly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a loose embrace. "Stitches…right."

He frowns. "You have been cleaning them? Applying that antiseptic I gave you? Checking for signs of infection?"

She blinks.

"Why don't you come over here," he says, "let me take a look?" He wraps an arm around her shoulders, leading her over to the nurse's station. She's stubborn, like Chin, so he doesn't bother trying to get her in an exam room. His Aunt's the same way. It runs in the family. He peels back the bandage on her shoulder poking out from beneath the tank top she's sporting this evening.

He should probably be grateful she's done that much in the way of caring for it – he knows how she gets wrapped up in things. "You've popped three stitches," he informs her, unimpressed.

Her face brightens. "Only that many? Don't worry, cuz, there's still another seven keeping it together, then! You said they were coming out this week, anyways." He shakes his head, inspects the shallow knife wound for signs of infection and finds none, then moves on.

Kono drifts back to the bed where the haole with the cracked ribs she came in with ended up, and as he's passing by, he hears them greet her as she slips behind the curtain to join them.

"Kono! Tell Steven to stop apologizing and go find either painkillers or a sedative – whatever's close at hand, he'll take the sedative – before I have to come over there and smack some sense into him."

-

_**Defense Attorney** _

"Run through this for me one more time," District Attorney Leilani Summers says, blinking in stunned shock and trying to imagine a world where 'flight capable incendiary device' translates into something other than 'flamethrower'.

"Commander McGarrett…" she begins once he's finished, "Are you sure you weren't – how did you phrase it – _'exposed to significant quantities of dihydrogen monoxide for extended quantities of time_ '?"

"What?" says the man before her, who she understands is a highly trained Navy SEAL in command of a special task force spearheaded by the Governor. "When I tackled--."

Detective Williams kicks McGarrett under the table so hard the table jumps, skitters a few inches away. "— _restrained the suspect using an aerial maneuver_ – he sustained some bruising. He should have rolled when he landed to dissipate the force over a larger distance."

They don't pay her nearly enough for this.

-

_**Bartender** _

It's shaping up to be a quiet weekday night when they trudge in the door. Lawrence is just wiping down the tables and quietly ignoring Christie's surreptitiously propped up physics textbook behind the bar as she dries a batch of mugs. He recognizes all the signs of a long day in the field from his own years as a cop back on the mainland in Kalakaua's silence and the way Kelly rolls his shoulders out before he sits down.

The picture the media paints of Five-0 looks nothing like the quiet group making a beeline for their usual table in the corner, out of the spotlight. On the TV in the corner, channel eight's anchor is narrating footage of the warehouse explosion they were involved in earlier that day. Lawrence quietly switches the feed to ESPN before any other patrons can take note.

He'd love to hear the story of how they blew up a warehouse of pillows -- that's a new one, even after all his years on the force – but their need for privacy trumps his curiosity, and he bites his tongue when McGarrett comes to get the drinks. He signals Christie that she's free to go on her break and takes the order himself.

"Two beers, a club soda, and just a glass of water."

"Long day, you sure you don't want some food to settle your stomachs?"

McGarrett pauses for a moment, pulling a prescription bottle out of his pocket to inspect the instructions more closely. Out of the corner of his eye, Lawrence can see the patient's name on the label. It reads _Williams, Daniel_.

"An order of fries would be great, actually. Thanks, Lew."

"Anytime, McGarrett," he returns McGarrett's respectful nod in kind, keeps his amusement to himself

Well, the media has one thing right.

There isn't another team like Five-0.


End file.
